For the past 15 years I have worked as a festival mixer, draggin my ass across Manitoba, Ontario, and the western Provinces every weekend to various music festivals. I'm the guy under the tent in the middle of the field, you know the tent that blocks everybodies sightline to the stage? I'm there because that's the centre position in the stereo field, this is the spot where I make the magic happen, this is what we call the FOH, or front of house position, where you find me and the Light Tech. I start my season late May at the Back Forty in Morden, and finish up generally mid September In Clearwater Manitoba at the Harvest Moon Festival, one of the cooler (fave) Manitoba Festivals. I have a job most mixers dream of and because I feel so privileged to do this for a living I felt compelled to write about it.

It started this year in Morden Manitoba at the Back Forty Festival in a beautiful park in downtown Morden, beauty day, and wheeled up to the field with the 5 ton full of QSC line arrays and Soundcraft Digital Performer Consoles. This is the 1st year out that I'm not carrying around big JBL HLA stacks (these are big stupid 450lb 5' boxes, waterproof yes but this is about the only positive thing I could say about these disturbing old school speakers) and as we set up the PA the client is all "where's all the PA? This is a 3rd of the size of the PA last year? What gives?" Without getting into it I explained to the client that with advancements in speaker technology everything is getting smaller and more efficient in their energy usage, I just said, wait till you hear them. This was a conversation to be repeated all summer long at every festival I did this summer. It was usually followed 15 minutes later with another convo that usually went like this...Client: Wow that sounds fabulous! It covers the field great! I can't believe the clarity and volume out of those small speakers! This is the best audio we've ever had!Me: You're welcome...Funny note here: using new digital snakes for the first time, the MC steps up to say "Welcome to the Back Fort" and the PA goes dead. I discover that unlike an analog snake that goes out 1 line at a time when a digital snake goes you lose everything! Luckily the old school guy in me had previously run the analog snake out-it took 5 minutes to patch it in and we were up and running. Great day with some great music highlighted by Little Miss Higgins & The Winnipeg Five and The Other Brothers.The next day I was home in Winnipeg setting up for the KidsFest, discovered I was double booked for the weekend so I did the opening ceremonies show on Wednesday and then spent the weekend over at the Ellice street festival for my friends at the WECC who sponsor the event.Next week I was off to Virden MB to do a show with Kenny Shields and Streetheart, a fine buncha humans with sum serious old school skills, great songs and of course the incredible pipes and showmanship of singer Kenny Shields who, pushing 70 is still fully commanding that stage...& rockin that shit.

Next up was JazzWpg festival. I hadn't worked this in years, I always felt that I'm pretty good at what I do but for some reason me and Jazz cats don't get along, it seems the moment they hear themselves in the PA they start telling me how to do my job, unlike all other genres where peeps seem to just respect my skills. So with this in mind TD John Cookshaw asked me to mix the mainstage shows this year at MTC, haha! I learnt a little trick this time....soundcheck with the subs off! Add low end when the room fills up and no-one is gonna complain. It still baffles me tho that Jazzbo's seem to have this pervading attitude that us Soundguys that happen to mix rocknroll can't possibly understand the subtle nuances of their music. I call bullshit on this...anyhoo got to mix Curtis Nowosad, James Cotton, Gregory Porter, and assisted with Arturo Sandoval. Great week and from the awfull balcony mix position think I made MTC sound pretty nice, given those 25 year old EV speakers the sound company provided. So from Jazz Fest we moved into Canada Day at the Forks, for a number of years I would mix at the ScotiaBank Stage but the last couple of years I have been mixing at the secondary stage under the canopy at the Forks, this stage is cool cause they usually have upcoming Indi bands. This year was highlighted by the progressive Mexi rock of Mariachi Ghost who marry traditional Mexican music with Pink Floyd guitar Deathfacepaint and a beautiful dancer who rocks a soundboard to become part of the rhythm section. That weekend I had off so I had booked a gig for my band Dash & the Dots at my buddy Jamie Hay's Club in Kenora. Most peeps know me as a mixer but I started out as a musician and songwriter. In my other life I produce records and play most instruments, guitar, piano, cello, upright bass, and most stringed instruments. In a way this has prepared me for my life as a mixer, it helps to intimately know and understand the the frequencies relative to the instruments one is mixing. We've been recording our 1st album for the last 2 years and I'm hoping to have it mixed for a fall release!

So this brings us to mid July and the festival of all festivals-The Winnipeg Folk Fest. I have worked the Shady Grove Stage for at least 10 years now and really enjoy this one for it's laid back atmo, great stage crew and wonderful workshops, highlighted this year by The Bros Landreth showing everybody how it's done. Can't say enough about how great these young guys are, truly a band to look out for....

Next up was Summerwinds Festival in Victoria Beach MB. I'm the technical director of this fest so it's a bit of a nail biter leading up to it, but all the work is in the prep 6 months before. Brand new stage this year which allowed us room to actually soundcheck more than 1 act for the first time. It happens that some festivals get too big, too quick & have to play catchup with the infrustructure. Kudo's to the local team that added 12 feet to the stage and new 200amp power drop this year. Highlights were sets by Canadian Act Trooper and Jamaican star Luciano. Also quite good were a young Manitoba act Until Red.Brandon Folk Fest

Next up was the Brandon Folk Fest, always a perennial favorite of mine, nice outdoor setting, some great music, crew, and always fun after hours with Bob Birdie and Eric Kinsman. Highlights were Martin Sexton, Until Red again and Mariachi Ghost. Rain was an issue, as it was almost every festival this summer, but Brandon has very little in the way of a canopy over the stage-made for a whole day of tarps on, tarps off, sigh....Gimli Icelandic Festival

And that brings us to August Long weekend Islendingadagurinn or in english, The Icelandic Festival of Gimli. Now this is allways a fun filled weekend, 4 days of great music on 2 different stages. This was the 125th anniversary festival which makes it the longest running cultural festival in North America, as always my friend and fest organiser Robbie Rousseau booked a slew of premier talent including some fantastic Icelandic acts and the cream of Canadian and Manitoba talent. Hard to shout out the highlights- there were so many from Elliot Brood, to Bros Landreth who just slew the competition. It was all great music-always walk away from this fest with a full belly of Chris's Fish & Chips and a soul full to the brim with musical inspiration.So the next week I had a recording session with my good friend and client Levy Abad, a Phillipino Canadian who writes songs about the immigrant experience here in Canada. We've made two records together and we're working on his 3rd now. This Tuesday we laid down a bed track for a new song "Migrants", recording his guitar and vocal to a drum track I threw together with me playing bass on the bed. Over the next weeks I played a kinda gospel organ track and some melodic piano, then adding angry sounding Electric Guitars only to be replaced (upon some reflection with Levy) by some beautiful 6 string acoustic parts, the song is coming together nicely & will develop more in the coming weeks as I shift more from festival work to fall / wintertime mode of playing music & recording, & doing the odd live gig at the WECC. Feel kinda odd in that this is the first time I've done any work in my studio in 2 months, I miss the place...That same week brought me & my crew to Winkler MB for, well as my IPhoto folder calls it, "Christian Shitshow". Now, If Christian music is your cup of tea this is the place for you. Personally I was brought up in a Christian household and it never included these sentiments - 1) "Ours is the one true God and all others are false!" 2) "Our government is betraying us true Christians!" 3) "We are the righteous majority so we will feel no indignation as we dictate our morality upon others"They lament that "their children are leaving the flock" no wonder! These peeps insist on telling other peeps how to run their bizness, no wonder their children are running for the hills. I've had it listening to this hate filled dialog, after a weekend of these kinda sentiments I have a bad taste in my mouth and leave a little more feeling like an atheist. For a place that has one of the nicest outdoor stages in the province, the technical director, after asking us out a day early didn't bother to book us hotel rooms, and felt no obligation to do so. Next we sat out in the 90 degree heat for 18 hrs with no food or water or time to even leave our stations to consider sustenance. We put our heart and soul into this work and the disrespect we felt this weekend was unprecedented. Next year I think I'll rent a cabin at a beach somewhere on this particular weekend.Nestor Falls Ontario

And then it was off to do a brand new festival in Nestor Falls On-The Moose & Fiddle Festival- for a first time festival they got it right in a lot of ways, well organised, a beautiful location and setting lakeside, and some fabulous music highlighted by Red Moon Road and The Perpetrators. Plus the nicest bunch of folks running things. I'll be happy to come back next year!Barge Fest @ The Forks

This is what they call Barge Fest at the Forks in Wpg. Usually setup on a barge in the harbor this year they built a stage up 1 level from the dock because if you look behind the Winnipeg Symphony performance it appears to be a whirling maelstrom in the background waters. Haha that's the Assinaboine River in the background raising about an inch an hour, by 9am Saturday morning it was about 3 inches from flooding onto the level where we of course had laid all our power cables and lighting cables for the show, as well as dimmer equipment, and quite frankly a lot of electrical equipment that would immediately go boom if the river rose any higher. 4 hours and 10 man crew later. the lighting was torn out and we started up the Saturday show while the crew was setting up an alternate light show in the background. I mixed a fab show of Manitoba and Saskatchewan artists highlighted by Chic Gamine and Yes we Mystic. By shows end we knew the river was gonna flood so the entire crew again started to strike the entire rig once again, till about 4 in the morning. I went home at 1 am because I knew now that I would be back at 9am to setup an alternate stage indoors to finish off the last day of the festival. Dead tired Sunday, Eric Kinsman & I set up another PA and got the stage going, felt like hell, the first time Eric hits the kik drum and I pull it up in the PA a vendor comes over and immediately screams at me "is it gonna be this loud?" Like she's incensed like I just personally ruined her day. Hmmm, not in the mood for this I'm thinking, and I reply, "actually miss, the concert is likely to be 4 or 5 times louder than this and I strongly suggest if you have a problem with me trying do simply do my job here, to take it up with the building management!" So off she went threatening the management that she would close down her shop for the day, to which they calmly replied, shut down and we fine you-read your contract with the mall! Haha...Not letting this affect us in the slightest we went on and did this show where Joey Landreth got onstage with Jack Semple, Sol James, Alex Cambell, Ryan Voth and proceeded to just simply bring the house down with a set of soulful tasty blues and R&B, just fabulous! What a way to end things off! Sometimes you get these rare moments where all the right elements in the universe collide to create a special moment in time. This was one of those moments!So it's labor day today and I guess I'm feeling like it's over soon, my festival season is drawing to a close and feeling a little sad about that cause it's been a great season and who wants this to end? I love doing this, like I said in the beginning I have a dream job in the summer and my winter life is not too shabby either. I'm 55 years old and still feeling like I'm getting better every mix I undertake, every festival and or album I mix. I hope I can do this forever, but everything is finite so I'm gonna enjoy it while I can. Next week is ManiFest on Broadway and the following week Eric Kinsman, Tim Iskierski and I go out to our fav fest of all The Harvest Moon festival In Clearwater Manitoba. I'll be updating as we go.For this blog I've kinda focused on the events of this summer and not really talked about the people or characters involved. Much as I hate reality TV a bunch of us in this industry often wonder how cool it would be to have a camera crew follow us around for a summer doing this. Cause I really work with an incredible cast of characters and this would make for sum fascinating NSFW reality TV. We laugh we cry we make some great music happen and this why it's all worth documenting...